


Forging a Path

by sanctum_c



Series: Endless Summer 2019 - Cloti Flavour [1]
Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: F/M, Midgar (Compilation of FFVII), Missing Scene, Train Graveyard (Compilation of Final Fantasy VII)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-03
Updated: 2020-03-03
Packaged: 2021-02-23 05:01:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23006146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanctum_c/pseuds/sanctum_c
Summary: Tifa, Cloud and Aeris need a route back through the Train Graveyard.
Relationships: Tifa Lockhart/Cloud Strife
Series: Endless Summer 2019 - Cloti Flavour [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2032405
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21





	Forging a Path

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt "'Well, that just happened'"

Time raced by in a rush, every passing second another delay, another chance of the inevitable. The fall of Sector Seven. Would they make it in time? Could they try to get people out of the sector or should they instead seek to stop Shinra? How long would a delay buy them? Ahead, Aeris scrambled up and out of the sewers, Cloud on her heels. Tifa followed them both and took a grateful breath of – if not fresh air – at least something preferable to the sewers.

“Where are we?” Cloud stared around. Rusted hulks of old trains lay nearby, some stacked three high, others fallen on their sides.

“Train graveyard.” Closer than she dared hope. “In Sector Seven.”

Her words leant both her companions a sense of urgency. Aeris glanced up to the plate with nervous eyes. “We better hurry.”

No arguments there. The central hub of Midgar made orientation easy. Now to navigate this maze of trains. In her past, Tifa explored Sector Seven and beyond wherever possible – including venturing into this scrapheap. But so long since, the nature of the area ever changing as rust collapsed the abandoned vehicles and more stacked on top. “This way.”

They moved as fast as they could over uneven ground, littered with scrap metal, broken glass and best not dwelled on organic matter. Some of the younger slum-dwellers of Sector Seven liked to insist the graveyard harboured ghosts. More likely some form of monster population was in here. Tifa kept to the avenues between the trains, ducking under precarious chassis’ and leaping abandoned seating. Keep on pressing towards the hub, despite the route forcing them to double-back at points, forcing them away from the centre to find another path leading them ahead.

Until they ran out of options. Somehow the plate was still suspended. Tifa did not dare glance at her watch. But there was no route forward any more. Other obstacles had circumvented by ducking into the broken open trains, but the doors on the high stacks of trains ahead remained jammed shut and none of them were eager to try forcing them; the stability of the stack ever much a concern.

“I could try climbing?” Tifa blinked at Aeris who offered her a reassuring smile. She pointed. “See, if I can get up there-“ A gap in the wall of trains where a succession of cables lay coiled. “-I can drop those down to you.”

“Good plan. But I think I-”

Aeris touched her arm. “I’m lighter.” And she was; slighter, far less muscle-mass. Tifa stepped back beside Cloud; ahead Aeris grabbed hand-helds and hauled, her long skirt flaring out behind her as she climbed. She made good progress – and Tifa could almost believe she did this regularly – until her foot knocked against a door. “Ow.”

“You okay?” Tifa called up.

“Fine!” The panel teetered and fell forward with a clang. It slipped from the roof of the train it balanced on to catch on the next train down with a screech of metal. The door tumbled and smacked into the ground with a crash of broken glass. “You okay?”

“Fine!” Cloud shouted back.

Tifa frowned. “Uh-oh.”

The stack of trains trembled, metal creaking and groaning as unintended balances shifted, the trains shifting. A long precarious groan sounded and one train – not the one Aeris currently clung to – slid off the stack and crashed into the area beyond. A train beyond the current wall slumped sideways, knocking onto something unseen beyond. A distant crane fell towards them, smashing against the roof of a train not far from Cloud.

The train shifted away from Tifa, upsetting Aeris’s balance ahead. She grabbed for the train beside her; she let go looking panicked as the train slid away from her and fell back. Another crane wobbled from the impact and slowly toppled. Some other distant crash sounded and the crane jolted forward. Right towards them. No time to think; Tifa grabbed Cloud’s waist and with a pivot moved him out of danger, the pointed end of the crane punching a deep groove into the concrete.

The sounds of falling debris and shifting trains subsided. Tifa still held Cloud’s waist, the closest they’d been since their reuniting in Midgar. He flushed; Tifa’s own face warming. “Well. That just happened.” Tifa sprang away from Cloud; Aeris miraculously remained perched on top of the train. Beside her, the results of the near disaster had opened up a new route. They might still make it.


End file.
